cyber-dating 101

So you've found yourself in the fascinating frontier of online dating! Relax and enjoy. Before very long, it will be hard to remember a time when people didn't meet this way. The most important thing is to put no pressure on the experience. Treat it like a cereal box prize - it's not going to change your life, but it might be fun. If you've engaged some form of paid site, you've probably already lost any chance at having that right attitude. But no matter! Here are some tips to keep the wind in your sails, and your course true.
You've gone through the preliminaries. You've created some sort of ad for yourself, or jumped into the swampy sea, and found an ad you like.
Now, you must answer it.
We'll wait, while you do that.
Back already? Good!
If you're on a free site, you've probably just given your e-mail address to a spam company who will sell your contact info to the marketers of miracle product Stiffie-Glow (patent pending). Or perhaps your "prospective love" is three giggling pre-teens. Mayhap even a diapered octogenarian, or my personal favorite, sociology undergrads doing field research. What? You could never be tricked by a fake ad? Oh, you sad thing. In this economy, spam companies can hire ad writers more clever than you or i will ever dream of being. And in affairs of love and sex, your gonads or ovaries can reduce your IQ by fifty points any time they damn well feel like it.
So okay! Now comes the fun part. You've made contact with someone who seems to be a human being. And they've weaved a web of words that have convinced you they might just be that special one in a million person who will, you know, kiss your genitals.
Don't get excited.
You haven't even seen this person yet (maybe they "forgot" to include a photo in their first note). Finally, your fingers click the command that will reveal their image. A picture - worth a thousand words. You betcher ass it is.
And...hey! Not bad. They don't look like a movie star, but let's be honest, no one looks like a movie star (including, and especially, movie stars). But this person is actually kinda, what's that word...cute!
Or you haven't been laid in a year. Either way...woo-woo!
Don't...get...excited.
This is the digital era. Everybody in the world has bumbled across one photo of themselves that makes them look vaguely dashing or delectable. Odds are the person on the other end looks nothing like this photo that you're already planning to download as your computer's wallpaper. People will submit any photo they are convinced shows their best side. If you were holding out for some sort of truth-in-advertising...well heck, i didn't even know they had turnip trucks anymore. Or have you been monopolizing that one truck your whole life? Relax, let somebody else deal with a Brassica rapa up their ass, and accept that this person will look very little like their photo...or at best, they kinda looked like that during the Bush administration (no, the other Bush administration). You might even get someone who is so dedicated to showing their best side that their head will be cropped out of the photo. I AM NOT making this up. When you ask for another photo, they will quickly oblige...with another headless photo. If you find one of these people, it will be far easier to get them to send naked (headless) images of themselves than a head shot. My advice is to go with it. Some people look goddamned good headless and naked.
So. You've got a connection, and a photo that flutters your endorphins. You exchange letters, and lo and behold...you uncover a delightful verbal chemistry! They seem intelligent and charming. You feel wittier than Noel Coward. You feel you can really TALK to this person.
Don't. Get. Excited.
You know virtually nothing about this person. Nothing about the interpersonal chemistry that might or might not exist. Nothing about their rythyms, their personal habits, or their smell...any of which might send you climbing a wall. It's even possible that, for some mutually-dysfunctional reason, you and this person might get stuck in this phase, and find reasons to put off meeting for a few weeks...or months...or even...this ACTUALLY HAPPENED to me...years. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN. You will live the greatest disaster of the cyber-romance age: developing an emotional bond with someone you've not met. The ramifications of a blunder this colossal...well, check your wrists. If you have scars, be prepared for more.
Instead, the moment there's a clear personality connection combined with a visual image that doesn't make you retch, ask them which is the Starbucks of their choice. When you greet each other outside, take them to that dive coffee shop instead.
And then...
You've met.
Maybe, just maybe, you'll talk for hours.
Maybe, just maybe, you'll walk for a couple more. Maybe during your goodbye hug, it will be hard to resist falling asleep and drooling on their neck.
DON'T. GET. EXCITED.
You're now in the real world where you won't meet the "real" them for a month or two.
So okay. My work here is done. I'm off to go scan the "casual encounters" section, looking for an ad from a woman who has never experienced anal. For some reason that a million big blue computers couldn't figure out, this is where a lot of quality women post. Strangely enough, they're not even necessarily looking for anal. I have no idea why.
Class dismissed.